


A Hallow Investment

by littleberd



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Bashing, Alternate Universe, Betrayal, Death Does Though, Death is very amused, Death will protect what is his, Dummbledore Fucked Up, Evil Albus Dumbledore, Ginny Weasley Bashing, Goblins, Gringotts Wizarding Bank, Harry doesn't time travel, Hermione Granger Bashing, M/M, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Master of Death Harry Potter, Order of The Fried Chicken Bashing, Ron Weasley Bashing, The Deathly Hallows, Three Words, it makes too much sense, took up a prompt from a lovely discord group, yes it's a cliche but it's my favorite trope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:40:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27703579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleberd/pseuds/littleberd
Summary: It has seen enough. It knows the whole story now. Knows who Harry's enemies were once they finally stopped lurking in the shadows.Death takes care of what belongs to it.And Harry Potter belongs to Death.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Comments: 48
Kudos: 493
Collections: Harry Potter Centric Fanfiction





	1. The Long-Con

Ron peeks anxiously at the clock, five minutes from eight. Harry's smirk doesn't leave his face as he continues slowly completing his paperwork, fountain pen leaving trails of ink on the report sheet.

Ron couldn't take it anymore, this fact made apparent by his sudden shadow looming over Harry's desk.

"Mate is there any way-"

Harry's grin spreads with laugh lines crinkling the crows feet gathering at the ends of his pale green eyes, he looks up, meeting the nervous blues of his auror partner, his best friend of nearly thirty years. "Go on Ron, I was wondering how late you were going to wait to ask. You really think I'd forget tonight was your anniversary?"

Ron's nervousness disappears in a flash, a chuff of laughter spreading his lips. Harry pulls a champagne bottle out of his desk drawer, handing it over with little fanfare. "Go on now, we both know if you're late this year Hermione will hex us _both_ this time."

Ron shakes his head with a grin that makes his face look ten times younger, shouting over his shoulder as he leaves the Auror department cubicle, "Thanks Harry. I owe you one!"

Harry shakes his head with a snort, and just as the clock strikes eight the Gemino charm, he'd placed on the report file before he'd begun his work on _his_ last report, disperses. All that's left is the four reports Ron has left, two of which he had summarized the day before.

Harry had done this purposefully, 1.) He knew Ron would wait till the last minute to ask this of Harry, he'd done it the first anniversary and he's never stopped since. And 2.) Though Harry loved being an Auror, being in the ministry building always brought up bad memories. He avoided it like the plague when he could, and when he couldn't he tried to leave as quickly as possible. If that meant doing reports at home or on his lunch then so be it.

Harry puts his hand in the free floo power, feeling the small dusty grains slipping through his fingers as he tosses it into the soot encompassed chimney. Green flames encompass him, consuming the Auror until there's just a bit of ash left where he once stood.

Arriving in his home's fireplace and seeing his beautiful wife, Ginny, sitting in her arm chair was not an unfamiliar sight. But seeing her fingers frozen on her knitting needles Molly had given to her and her baby blue eyes giving off a reflective golden glow was alarming... but what truly set trepidation and terror in his stomach were the two wands, the elder wand for it could only be the elder wand, he could feel it's cold and warm aura caressing his own, and one he recognized as _Ginny's_ , pressing into Harry's neck. A spell he never saw coming from a wizard he never thought could betray him. And so ends the life of Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, vanquisher and equal of Lord Voldemort.

"Hello my boy, and goodbye... _**Evada Kedavra**_."

Harry's body crumbles to the floor, dead. Albus grins with a victorious twinkle in his eye but that twinkle disappears swiftly at the sound of laughter. Loud, unabashed and ever so deranged. It sounded remarkably like Sirius Black's the day he was arrested for the murder he did not commit. Another witness to a crime, another _Scape-goat_?

A dark shadow dissolves from the _only_ dark corner in the cozy looking room, it did not have a lot of hiding places. The robe gave off wisps of dark smoke, a hood obscuring it's face but the scythe it drew forth was held by a skeletal hand.

Albus Dumbledore shook in terror at the being he had made his life's goal of escaping. Knew deep in his too old brittle bones that this was no illusion, this was the genuine article.

"If only you had let my master die of old age, if only he had died without the harsh cut of betrayal and instant need for vengeance. If he had only welcomed me instead _With open arms and greeted me as an old friend_ , then maybe I wouldn't have interfered. You played the long-con Albus, what you didn't know, but I always knew, was it was not long _enough_."

Albus' eyebrows scrunched in alarm, "That voice! You-"

Death had waited, had watched every moment of Harry's life with a smirk.

Time halts as it raises it's scythe and turns it counterclockwise. The contents of the little hourglass melded in the thickest part of the gunmetal blade spills out, weeping a dark smoke where there should be glimmering black sand.

It has seen enough. It knows the whole story now. Knows who Harry's enemies were once they finally stopped lurking in the shadows.

Death takes care of what belongs to it.

And Harry Potter belongs to Death.


	2. Twilight

The light leaves the lamp posts along Privet Drive one by one, fleeing from their homes in streaks of white, comets summoned and swallowed by the device in Albus Dumbledore's aged hand.

It was simply a precaution, the muggles residing in this neighborhood need not see his errand boy.

The sound of a revving motorcycle rings loud, _too loud_.

_Though they've certainly_ heard _the oaf._

He reigned in the heated glare and smothered it with his grandfatherly twinkle, "Ah, Hagrid. Did you have a good trip?"

The wizard barely listens to the bumbling half-breed, taking the cargo into his arms with a gentle grip.

McGonagall silently pads to her leader, sharply morphing back to her human form in the same breath, just an inch away from brushing against Albus' robes. "I still don't agree with this Albus. I've been observing them, and have found them wanting. They're the worst kind of muggles." She whispers harshly at her mentor.

_Ah, so she's still huffing about the placing._

She's right of course, he mentally nods along to her sound opinion. But the rearing of the Boy-Who-Lived is to his particular interest. Especially with what he'd ensured to be resting beneath the, now infamous, scar. Abused children -he had no doubt Harry Potter will be counted among the children burdened with such a childhood in the near future- were so very easy to manipulate. Not the _easiest_ to tame and groom, the marauders still held that title, but still manageable. No, the hardest children to wrangle were those sorted into the snake pit. _Children_? Hardly. Once a _snake_ they'd always be a _snake_. Though not impossible to cajole them into a kowtow, it was infinitely more satisfying to have those who'd rather break their back bow to his will.

Harry would not be placed in Slytherin, however pleasurable it would be to make the Horcrux of the detestable Tom Marvolo Riddle sink to his knees and obey, he needed Harry to never defy, never doubt, to obey _without_ question. He needed to wield him as both a weapon against the dark lord he'd manufactured and as a net to collect the last Deathly Hallow, wherever Tom had hidden it away.

It had grated at his will to allow the stone to reside on Tom's hand, but he had not planned out a way to join the Gaunt heir and the Potter heir in one bloodline, so holding it would be an unwelcomed distraction and instill a deep seething annoyance at it's defiance to be _owned_.

Albus glances down at the horcrux vessel, slumbering so peacefully swathed in the blanket he'd been found holding at the site of it's parent's deaths. He brushed away the sparse ashes the ride on Sirius' magic'd muggle vehicle had not gotten rid of. Albus struggled to hide the sneer of triumph at the centerpiece of his long time goal.

The wizard marches to the cadence of his future victory, placing the boy smack dab in the middle of the front porch. He pulls the letter fhe'd prepared from his sleeve and tucks it into the folds of the boy's blanket. Leaning down, low enough to hide his grin, he can't resist gloatingly whispering, "Till we meet again, my boy."

Albus bites back his laugh at the look of discomfort overtaking the boy's face at his words. He straightens, his back popping with age, a reminder of the consequences should his long-term scheme fail.

_I cannot allow that to come to pass._

"The blood wards have already been activated. I've enchanted the knocker to not stop banging itself against the door until the boy is taken inside. But it won't be triggered until we vacate the neighborhood. Let us away, lest the boy contract hypothermia. We've much to do in the coming days, and we've only finished a few tasks on the long list to complete."

McGonagall falls out of step, just enough to turn and cast a warming charm on the boy in her worry for the cold, it was three in the morning of November First, but what little warmth dawn could provide was too far away to chance. When she turns back to catch up to her mentor, a brush of almost impossibly chill air invades the right side of her body, burying it's claws into the barest inches of her ribs and leaving what feels like black frost bite bruises within. She shudders and prays to magic that the boy's horrid relatives are not heavy sleepers.

Death shakes it's head at the wizarding world, cradling it's master and vanishing away. It was almost sickening how it all lined up and yet the mortals were all so blind. Sirius Black was arrested but an hour ago and already Dumbledore was placing Harry in the care of Muggles who would deprive him of something as precious as a name. Only going by _boy_ and _freak_ up until he started elementary school.

The boy's eyes crinkled open and were mesmerized by the silky fabric draped around him. He had wormed his little hands out of the blanket and was clenching into the beautiful cloak when Death noticed it's Master awake. It sighed happily at the boy's innocence, the joy it felt having saved it's master from his fate.

And when Harry's little fingers found it's skeletal hand, and looked to his loyal servant's face that was carrying him to safety, the bright peridot eyes of the boy gleamed with delight. It was this image that will drive Death to any length for it's master. For no first meeting, of any being, with Death had ever been so much like Ignotus Peverell's last greeting. That is to say, none before this morning.

Death strides into Gringotts, unseen as the sun peaks above the chimney's of Diagon Alley.

This child, it would cherish.

The infant giggles merrily, playing with Death's fingers.

That, Death vows.

********************************

Unknown to the Order members, the boy would never be found on the Dursley's doorsteps as the sun stumbled into view, that brisk November morning. Instead, they'd be awoken to an outrageous and baffling enigma. Their doorknocker was beating a hole through their door, and it did not cease. Eventually they resigned themselves to just have the bizarre thing removed, they replaced it a couple of hours later, at a _decent_ time. But there was no letter, there was no child, and when they started receiving a large amount of money every month they didn't think twice of using it to spoil their son rotten.

Something they would come to deeply regret in a decade.


	3. Vault Ø

The doors gently open, the brass hinges well oiled and shining from years of proper upkeep. There are only two Goblin workers awake and maintaining the lobby of Gringotts British Branch, besides them there's not another living being in the lobby, and neither stir from their paperwork. Death is not seen unless he wishes to be seen after all.

Death steps inside and ambles to a discreet, private business room. The door closes with a soft near inaudible click.

One of the employees, a bank clerk by the name of Odbert, finishes and organizes a stack of potential investments. But upon lifting his black beady eyes, he notices the enchantment over one of the business rooms has been activated. Something it only does whenever one is occupied. He and Jagmaw were the only occupants in the Gringotts lobby, this he believed to be the truth. Which could only mean, one of their private room's enchantments was faulty, a very rare thing to happen as such things were taken in utmost seriousness. And that was something to file immediately, for the Goblin who'd inscribed the runes held a warranty, which meant Gringotts would be getting it's money back and _then some_ for the inconvenience and potential risk of the privacy of the wizards who were promised complete secrecy in such rooms.

But it was a requirement to check if anyone was in the room. "Jagmaw, conference room 13 has been activated. I've got to go check if there's any blasted wizard in there, which I doubt, before filing the proper paperwork. I'll return to my duties in a moment."

Jagmaw twitches his quill in acknowledgment, eyes never leaving the complete account history of vault 108.

The goblin twists the doorknob and had he been holding anything it would have dropped to the marble floor alongside his knees. Oddbert is startled upon finding out he was wrong.

There Death's visage was, shadows stretch in the private room that was usually the coziest place in Gringotts, just casually sitting there cuing over a baby clutching at his skeletal finger in a basket.

"Good evening Odbert."

Odbert, though a simple bank clerk, was a Goblin, and Goblins do not _fear_ so natural an entity as Death. For all succumb to him in the end, it was the way of the world.

"G-good morning... Death." Odbert finally manages to collect himself, voice cracking only the tiniest amount but very soft in anxiousness. For if he was to be collected young then he would go with the grace of a Goblin.

"Fear not, I have not graced Gringotts today to reap, I've come for a different purpose." Death chuckles softly, shaking his head minutely. Harry's own giggle around the finger he's decided to stick in his mouth seems to brighten the room just the slightest, "I need to request an audience with the current head of Gringotts British branch, His highness the Goblin King and any other high ranking influential Goblins that deal in the affairs betwixt the wizarding world and your nation. But do leave out any members of the Goblin Liaison Office, and any wizards. They're most definitely in the Wizengamot or Ministry's pocket, therefore, a future enemy to myself and the Goblin nation."

Odbert stutters, bewildered and heads to the back room in a daze. As he goes behind the counter he looks to Jagmaw, "It seems I was wrong... we have esteemed company in our midst. I'm to make a dozen or so floo calls, I'll be back in a moment."

The calls made were all met with threats and outrage. Upon his last call he was even told he was going to be fired from his position for such a ludicrous prank. Odbert rubs his temples at the oncoming headache of having all the paperwork they'd no doubt start filing to have his job on a platter, speed walking back to Death he stops in front of Jagmaw, "Jagmaw, I hate to interrupt your work but I require a witness as there is no one else present and anyone else I were to call has no reason to heed my request and may even call my claims false. Please come with me to talk with our guest."

Jagmaw huffs but drops his quill back in it's inkwell, "Who is this guest then that would make those you've no doubt floo-called in the back claim you're making false claims?"

Oddbert shakes his head, "I'd rather they introduce themselves as you will likely not believe me either."

Goblins, though a race with a proclivity for ownership of anything of worth, also have a lesser known inclination towards curiosity and peculiarity. This is what truly drives Jagmaw to set aside his work and hobble after Oddbert to meet this mysterious guest.

And what a true anomaly it is to see _Death_ casually seated at the table _cradling a giggling human babe_.

"The Goblins you've requested audience with have... laughed me off and one grumpy individual in particular has, to paraphrase, pledged to have my resume wiped of any redeeming positions and my name to be made a slur akin to money-waster as I have wasted their time and time is money as they would see it. This is Jagmaw, unfortunately he is a teller such as myself and not one of the Goblin's you requested an audience with. But he is here as a witness that my claims are sound and should we be taken to court you can sue them for unfounded claims of identity theft, we can even set about contacting the newspapers to further besmirch their record with unprofessionalism should you wish to take it a step further." Oddbert snips, rather angered that his own honor as a respectable Goblin was being called into question. Though Jagmaw and Oddbert couldn't very well fault them for the doubt as, again, this was quite a far-fetched situation to have envisioned into existence.

Death chuckles tiredly at the faces of the Goblins, it hadn't meant to cause such troubles to the Tellers but it had doubted a simple floo-call would have been enough to drag them into a conference with itself. Death slowly rises, towering and svelte, the chuckle darkening with mischief. "How rude, then shall we startle them off of their high horses?"

Death stalks out of the conference room and comes to a halt in the grand atrium, bending down to the two Goblins following It. It pulls from thin air a long needle slim matt black key. Simple in design, with an Ø symbol engraved at the handle. "The Goblin that founded Gringotts made this as a sort of joke, but magic has a way of taking a mile when you give an inch. I was bestowed a key on the day of the first Gringotts Bank' construction. Oddbert, if you would please man the floo? I feel you will derive a great deal of satisfaction in answering the rude individuals that will no doubt be calling back soon enough."

Oddbert hesitantly does as requested and Death leads Jagmaw with him to the entrance of the bank, having them step outside.

Jagmaw follows skeptically, Death snorts, "Fear not, not a soul is abound, I would know. Those that would be awake at this time are either sulking and nursing a drink or drunk and dancing in a pub because of a certain Wizard's _death_." 

Jagmaw finally deigning to use his voice objects, "I don't understand why you've gone outside of Gringotts, as vaults are _inside_ of the Bank."

"Patience..." Death closes the doors to Gringotts with a flourish, and lines the key up with a small barely noticeable hole between the door handles, a blink and the hole has morphed into a keyhole.

The key slides into the keyhole without a sound of resistance, and as Death turns it with a deafening click the change is nearly instantaneous. Gringotts tilted white alabaster columns instantly turn pitch black. The door gives way and the inside hasn't changed at all.

"Do you understand now?"

Jagmaw looks utterly baffled, but then he becomes deathly pale. Remembering _the_ loop-hole the Goblin Nation had been using for Centuries, the very loop-hole that cost them the Goblin Rebellion.

"The Right of Conquest... oh Merlin..."

Death chuckles softly, "Yes Jagmaw, The Right of Conquest. Those who I have defeated, or in the future, as I exist in no one given time, _will_ defeat, I rightfully lay claim to all they house in their vaults."

Death gently ushers the stunned Goblin inside, "Come inside now, we've Grumpy Goblins to console as Oddbert has indubitably had his fun."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone that watched the technoblade stream. And anyone that hasn't... here's a brief animatic that ironically enough is almost exactly what I had planned for this scene. And I know I'm posting this in February but I've been working on this chapter for nearly a day after I posted the last chapter, I've simply had a lot going on what with Covid and moving. Please be patient with me.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLhWOIF1fTk 
> 
> "Welcome home Theseus." 
> 
> ;)


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